Do More Guns Make Us Safer?

The American Journal of Medicine published a study that answers this question in the negative. The United States has 88.8 guns per hundred people and a fire-arm related death rate of 10.2 deaths per 100,000 people. The United Kingdom has 6.2 guns per hundred people and a 0.25 fire-arm death rate. Japan has 0.6 guns per hundred people and a 0.06 fire-arm death rate. Canada is in between, with 30.8 guns per hundred people and a 2.44 fire-arm death rate. There was no correlation between the mental illness rate in a country and its crime rate, but there was a positive correlation between the mental illness rate and fire-arm related deaths. Interestingly, the crime rate in the U.S. is only about half the rate in Canada and in the United Kingdom, but Japan’s crime rate is less than half of ours. Obviously, there are multiple factors at play. See S Bangalore, American Journal of Medicine 2013;126:873-876.